from the dropping-the-mic dept

Outgoing Senator Mark Udall has been a key player in trying to hold the intelligence community's feet to the fire concerning their unconstitutional and illegal activities -- and that includes both the NSA and CIA. He was a key player in making sure that the CIA torture report was actually released -- and there was pressure on him, if the report wasn't released, to read it into the record to force it out. Even with the release on Tuesday, some were asking for Udall to at least release an unredacted version or even more sections from the full ~7,000 page report, rather than just the 500 page exec summary. In fact, in Udall's final floor speech on Wednesday (link to a video that is about 50 minutes), the Senator instead chose to reveal more information related to the so-called "Panetta Review" on the CIA's torture program.

The Panetta Review is the internal CIA report, analyzing the same information that the Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI) staff analyzed for the torture report, and came to the same basic conclusions about the CIA's torture practices, its lying to Congress and other bad activities. But here's the interesting bit: the CIA never intended anyone to see the Panetta Review. But it came out last year when CIA staffers accidentally handed it over to the Senate staffers as part of the investigation. That resulted in Udall questioning CIA bosses about the report during an open Senate hearing about a year ago -- which was followed up by the CIA infamously spying on the Senate staffers' computers. The CIA defended the spying by claiming that no one in the CIA had officially handed over that document (even though they had...) and thus they assumed that their own computers had a security breach. Or so they claimed.

The CIA has done everything it can to try to bury the Panetta Report. But Udall actually discussed it in depth. A big chunk of his speech is actually discussing some of the details in the Panetta Review, going beyond the CIA torture report. Following his speech, Senator Richard Burr -- who is a known buddy of the intelligence community, and soon to take over the Senate Intelligence Committee -- ridiculously claimed that Udall disclosed a bunch of "very classified" material. What it actually shows, however is that the CIA's response to the torture report is simply more lies from the CIA. As Udall noted in his speech, since the Panetta Review was supposed to be internal, it was a lot more open and honest, and it agreed with the Senate staffers. He first points out that the official CIA response to the terror report, from current Director John Brennan, shows the CIA's "flippant" attitude towards oversight and the fact that it knows the Obama administration will let the CIA get away with anything. However, the Panetta Review shows the true story.

In my view, the Panetta Review is a smoking gun. It raises fundamental questions about why a review of the CIA conducted internally years ago and never provided to the committee is so different from the official Brennan response and so different from the public statements of former CIA officials.

In other words, when discussing things in private, the CIA will readily admit to everything that's in the torture report. It's just when they're talking to the public that they try to spin the story.

The Panetta review is refreshingly free of excuses, qualifications or caveats.... The Panetta review found that the CIA repeatedly provided inaccurate information to the Congress, the president and the public on the efficacy of its coercive techniques.

He further notes that where the Brennan response tries to downplay or completely reject the findings of the Senate's report, the Panetta Review confirms all of them. From that, he notes that Senate staffers became concerned that the CIA was further lying to them, based on the claims of Director John Brennan.

Udall claims that the full Panetta Review should be released as well, since it is the CIA discussing the same issues in their own words, thus proving the claims by former CIA officials and their defenders that the SSCI report is nothing more than a "partisan hack job" are false. Furthermore, it shows that the CIA is lying in its response.

The refusal to provide the full Panetta Review and the refusal to acknowledge facts detailed in both the committee study and the Panetta Review lead to one disturbing finding: Director Brennan and the CIA today are continuing to willfully provide inaccurate information and misrepresent the efficacy of torture. In other words: The CIA is lying.

Of course, with Udall leaving the Senate, the Panetta Review is unlikely to see the light of day. Burr not only said that Udall's statements revealed classified materials, but also flat out lied, and claimed that "this is a document that was removed from the CIA against the law." Except that's not true. The DOJ investigated and didn't find anything wrong with what the Senate staffers did.

As the Politico article above notes, Jason Leopold has a FOIA lawsuit trying to get access to the Panetta Review, but that seems unlikely to get very far. In the end, it looks like the Panetta Review is likely to be locked up for many, many years, if it's ever released at all.

from the judging-a-book-by-its-cover dept

It's no secret that those most closely responsible for the CIA's torture program are pulling out all the stops to attack the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the program, trying out a variety of defenses from "it actually saved lives" to "it's just a partisan hack job." So it should come as no surprise that former Vice President Dick Cheney has been making the cable TV news appearances to help attack the report. After all, many have argued that the real person behind the torture program was Cheney and his staff -- and to date, Cheney has insisted that everything that was done was perfectly reasonable and he'd do it again. Thus there's no surprise when Cheney appears on Fox News (because, of course), to claim that the report is "a bunch of hooey" and "full of crap" and "deeply flawed" only to then admit " I haven't read the report."

Wait, what?

Even the Fox News interviewer was taken aback -- and Cheney must have realized how stupid he looked, because he then tried to backtrack, arguing that he hadn't read "all 6,000 pages," but then saying he'd read "parts of it" and "summaries." Yes, we've all read "summaries." But some of us have sat down to read the whole 500 pages (minus the redacted bits, of course). You would hope that if Cheney was going on TV to respond to questions about the report that he might have done so as well, rather than just repeating the talking points handed out to folks associated with the program. Apparently not.

From there, Cheney shifted over to his other key talking point -- one that is entirely debunked by the report itself:

“How nice do you want to be to the murderers of 3,000 Americans?”

Yeah, great. Except the report makes it fairly clear that many of the people tortured had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks on 9/11. In fact, the only real "revelations" from the torture program was that the CIA torturers concluded that the people being tortured really didn't have any relevant information. Furthermore, the "how nice do you want to be" line is incredibly revealing and disturbing, because it sets up an unending war. What's to stop millions of people angry at America from justifying new terrorist attacks on us based on "how nice do you want to be to torturers from America?"

No one was saying that we should buddy up with the people responsible for 9/11, but to pretend the only other option is to torture many innocent people is psychopathic.

It won't surprise anyone, really, that Cheney will defend the torture program that he oversaw. But his comments here are sickening and should be quite eye-opening about the level of cognitive dissonance from the powerful people who were responsible for this incredibly shameful period in US history.

from the how-do-they-sleep-at-night? dept

There are so many incredible things in the CIA Torture Report that will be discussed and analyzed over the next few weeks and months. But one that stands out to me is that the architects of the torture program were not only wholly unqualified to design it, but they profited massively from the program, to the tune of at least $81 million. And that number may go up, as they also are getting paid by the government for any legal issues related to the program, including over $1 million for legal fees associated with responding to the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation that resulted in this report.

The report uses pseudonyms for the two psychologists: Grayson Swigert and Hammond Dunbar. However, their names were actually revealed back in 2007: James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. To say they were unqualified for the work of designing the torture program would be an understatement. While they were psychologists with the US Air Force's "Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape" (SERE) program (which is supposed to help train US military personnel in case they're captured), you'd think they'd actually have some relevant background with terrorism and/or interrogation. But, nope:

Neither
psychologist had experience as an interrogator, nor did either have specialized knowledge of al-
Qa'ida, a background in terrorism, or any relevant regional, cultural, or linguistic expertise.
SWIGERT had reviewed research on "learned helplessness," in which individuals might become
passive and depressed in response to adverse or uncontrollable events. He theorized that
inducing such a state could encourage a detainee to cooperate and provide information.

Instead, their only real experience with interrogation was in reading reports on how to resist the kind of torture programs used by those who failed to follow the Geneva Conventions. Their limited experience with interrogation revolved almost entirely on pure torture programs that did not follow the Geneva Conventions:

SERE training is intended to be used to teach our soldiers how to resist interrogation by
enemies that refuse to follow the Geneva Conventions and international law. In SERE school, our troops who are at
risk of capture are exposed in a controlled environment with great protections and caution -- to techniques adapted
from abusive tactics used against American soldiers by enemies such as the Communist Chinese during the Korean
War. SERE training techniques include stress positions, forced nudity, use of fear, sleep deprivation and, until
recently, the Navy SERE school used the waterboard. These techniques were designed to give our students a taste
of what they might be subjected to if captured by a ruthless, lawless enemy so that they would be better prepared to
resist. The techniques were never intended to be used against detainees in U.S. custody.

In other words, their knowledge of interrogation came solely from knowing a little about torture programs used by countries who didn't follow the Geneva Conventions, and their role had been to try to help US soldiers resist such techniques should they come up. Instead, they turned it around and told the CIA to do almost everything that they flat out knew were torture programs in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

The psychologists -- initially led by the pseudonymous "Swigert" -- were the key to initially torturing Abu Zubadayah. According to the report, the CIA initially planned to see if Zubadayah would provide information through more standard interrogation techniques, leaving a "hard approach... only as a last resort." In discussing this, someone suggested bringing in Swigert for help -- and almost immediately the plans changed.

Shortly thereafter, CIA
Headquarters formally proposed that Abu Zubaydah be kept in an all-white room that was lit 24
hours a day, that Abu Zubaydah not be provided any amenities, that his sleep be disrupted, that
loud noise be constantly fed into his cell, and that only a small number of people interact with
him. CIA records indicate that these proposals were based on the idea that such conditions
would lead Abu Zubaydah to develop a sense of "learned helplessness. CIA Headquarters
then sent an interrogation team to Country [X], including SWIGERT, whose initial role was to
consult on the psychological aspects of the interrogation.

Remember, Swigert had apparently recently reviewed some "research" on "learned helplessness," and suddenly the CIA's interrogation plan changed. An FBI message at the time shows exasperation over this, noting that the FBI's more traditional interrogation techniques had been working in getting relevant information, but as soon as the CIA's chosen psychologists showed up, they went straight to torture, and blocked the FBI out of the process. Here's part of an FBI agent's message back to FBI headquarters:

"AZ's health has improved over the last two days and Agency[CIA]is ready
to move [Abu Zubaydah] out of the hospital and back toUH^^Ion
in an elaborate plan to change AZ's environment. Agency [CIA]
advised this day that they will be immediately changing tactics in all future AZ
interviews by having only there [sic] [CIA officer] interact with AZ (there will
be no FBI presence in interview room). This change contradicts all
conversations had to date.... They believe AZ is offering, 'throw away
information' and holding back from providing threat information (It should be
note [sic] that we have obtained critical information regarding AZ thus far and
have now got him speaking about threat information, albeit from his hospital
bed and not [an] appropriate interview environment for full follow-up (due to
his health). Suddenly the psychiatric team here wants AZ to only interact with
their [CIA officer, and the CIA sees this] as being the best way to get the threat
information.... We offered several compromise solutions... all suggestions
were immediately declined without further discussion. .. .This again is quite
odd as all information obtained from AZ has come from FBI lead interviewers
and questioning.... I have spent an un-calculable amount of hours at [Abu
Zubaydah's] bedside assisting with medical help, holding his hand and
comforting hum through various medical procedures, even assisting him in
going [to] the batliroom.... We have built tremendous report [sic] with AZ and
now that we are on the eve of 'regular'' interviews to get threat information, we
have been 'written out' of future interviews.

That was just the beginning. "Swigert" became a key cog in pushing for ever greater torture techniques:

In early July 2002, CIA officers held several meetings at CIA
Headquarters to discuss the possible use of "novel interrogation methods" on Abu Zubaydah.'"
During the course of those meetings SWIGERT proposed using techniques derived from the U.S.
military's SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) school. SWIGERT provided a
list of 12 SERE techniques for possible use by the CIA: (1) the attention grasp, (2) walling, (3)
facial hold, (4) facial slap, (5) cramped confinement, (6) wall standing, (7) stress positions, (8)
sleep deprivation, (9) waterboard, (10) use of diapers, (11) use of insects, and (12) mock
burial. SWIGERT also recommended that the CIA enter into a contract with Hammond
DUNBAR, his co-author of the CIA report on potential al-Qa'ida interrogation resistance
training, to aid in the CIA interrogation process. Like SWIGERT, DUNBAR had never
participated in a real-world interrogation. His interrogation experience was limited to the paper
he authored with SWIGERT and his work with U.S. Air Force personnel at the SERE school.

You'd think that this sort of lack of experience would be a concern. But, to the CIA, apparently, it was seen as an advantage. A footnote quoting the CIA's response discusses this:

Drs. [SWIGERT] and [DUNBAR] had the closest proximate expertise CIA sought at the beginning of the program,
specifically in the area of non-standard means of interrogation. Experts on traditional interrogation methods did not
meet this requirement. Non-standard interrogation methodologies were not an area of expertise of CIA officers or of
the US Government generally. We believe their expertise was so unique that we would have been derelict had we
not sought them out when it became clear that CIA would be heading into the uncharted territory of the program.

The Senate report points follows this up by pointing out that these psychologists were the key to convincing the CIA to adopt the ruthless torture plans:

As noted above, the CIA did not seek out SWIGERT and DUNBAR after a
decision was made to use coercive interrogation techniques; rather,SWIGERT and DUNBAR played a role in
convincing the CIA to adopt such a policy.

In fact, it soon reached the point at which the only people allowed to have contact with Abu Zubadayah were... Swigert and Dunbar, the two psychologists who (remember) had no experience with interrogations and little to no background on Al'Qaeda.

On August 3, 2002, CIA Headquarters informed the interrogation
team at DETENTION SITE GREEN that it had formal approval to apply the CIA's enhanced
interrogation techniques, including the waterboard, against Abu Zubaydah. According to CIA
records, only the two CIA contractors, SWIGERT and DUNBAR, were to have contact with Abu
Zubaydah. Other CIA personnel at DETENTION SITE GREEN - including CIA medical
personnel and other CIA "interrogators with whom he is familiar" - were only to observe.

The report notes, not surprisingly, that this plan to torture Abu Zubadayah produced no useful intelligence (not that it would be okay if it had... but just pointing it out). However, the CIA then let the two psychologists review the success of the program themselves. Guess what they found?

As noted, CIA records indicate that Abu Zubaydah never provided
the information for which the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques were justified and
approved.... Nonetheless, CIA Headquarters
informed the National Security Council that the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques used
against Abu Zubaydah were effective and were "producing meaningful results." A cable from
DETENTION SITE GREEN, which CIA records indicate was authored by SWIGERT and
DUNBAR, also viewed the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah as a success. The cable
recommended that "the aggressive phase at [DETENTION SITE GREEN] should be used as a
template for future interrogation of high value captives," not because the CIA's enhanced
interrogation techniques produced useful information, but rather because their use confirmed that
Abu Zubaydah did not possess the intelligence that CIA Headquarters had assessed Abu
Zubaydah to have.

Got that? They said it was a success because the torture turned up nothing of value, and thus it proved he had no valuable information to provide. Thus, it should become the model for "future interrogations." And it did. The same cable, again, authored by those two psychologists, set themselves up to continue being torturers-for-hire:

The cable further recommended that psychologists—a likely
reference to contractors SWIGERT and DUNBAR— "familiar with interrogation, exploitation
and resistance to interrogation should shape compliance of high value captives prior to
debriefing by substantive experts."

And, indeed, they were used again. And again.

As late as June 2003, SWIGERT and DUNBAR, operating outside
of the direct management of the Renditions Group, were deployed to DETENTION SITE BLUE
to both interrogate and conduct psychological reviews of detainees.

This was just the beginning, but once they were in, they were in. Despite a few attempts by some in the CIA to raise concerns about these two, they became the go to guys for both torture techniques and in evaluating those very same torture techniques. And they made a shitload of money.

CIA contractors SWIGERT and DUNBAR, who played a central
role in the development of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques in the summer of 2002,
and then used the techniques as contract interrogators, formed a company in 2005
[Company Y]. In addition to providing interrogators for the CIA's interrogation program,
Company Y was granted a sole source contract to provide operational psychologists, debriefers,
and security personnel at CIA detention sites. Under the contract. Company Y was tasked
with conducting ongoing conversations with CIA detainees to learn about the terrorist mind set
(this project was named the "Terrorist Think Tank" or "T3"), developing [REDACTED]
strategies, and writing the history of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program. Later
descriptions of their services note that—on behalf of the CIA—Company Y officers participated
in the interrogations of detainees held in foreign government custody and served as
intermediaries between entities of those governments and the CIA.

By 2006, the value of the base contract for their company, with all
options exercised, was in excess of $180 million. As of May 2007, Company Y had hired [X]
former CIA staff officers, many of whom had previously been involved with the CIA's
Detention and Interrogation Program....

The CIA's contract with Company Y was terminated in mid-2009.
From the time of the company's creation in 2005 through the close-out of its contract in 2010,
the CIA paid Company Y more than $75 million for services in conjunction with the CIA's
Detention and Interrogation Program.... In 2008, the CIA authorized an additional payment to
Company Y of approximately $570,000, after Company Y indicated that it had incurred costs for
conducting countersurveillance of its officers when appeared in the press in conjunction with the program. The CIA agreed to a $5 million indemnification contract for the company that covered, among other expenses, criminal
prosecution. Company Y hired a prominent [REDACTED] law firm for representation in
2007, and billed the CIA $1.1 million for legal expenses from 2007 through 2012 per its
indemnification agreement. Part of these expenses included legal presentation at a
Committee staff briefing by SWIGERT and DUNBAR on November [XX], 2008. Under the
CIA's indemnification contract, the CIA is obligated to pay Company Y's legal expenses
through 2021.

Torture sure is profitable.

Reading the details of the report, it certainly feels like James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen deserve a place in history alongside other infamous torturers. And yet, instead, they're free and have banked many millions of dollars -- and Mitchell now spends his retirement kayaking in Florida. It's downright sickening.

"To say that we relentlessly, over an expanded period of time, lied to everyone about a program that wasn't doing any good, that beggars the imagination," Hayden said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

Well... Prepare to have your imaginations beggared! Here's Michael Hayden's relentless lies, told over an expanded period of time, about a program that wasn't doing any good, as documented in the Senate Committee's report. [pdf link]

Briefings to the full Committee beginning on September 6, 2006, also contained numerous inaccuracies, including inaccurate descriptions of how interrogation techniques were applied and what information was obtained from CIA detainees. The CIA misrepresented the views of members of Congress on a number of occasions. After multiple senators had been critical of the program and written letters expressing concerns to CIA Director Michael Hayden, Director Hayden nonetheless told a meeting of foreign ambassadors to the United States that every Committee member was "fully briefed," and that "[t]his is not CIA's program. This is not the President's program. This is America's program." The CIA also provided inaccurate information describing the views of U.S. senators about the program to the Department of Justice.

---

A February 2007 report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which the CIA acting general counsel initially stated "actually does not sound that far removed from the reality" was also criticized. CIA officers prepared documents indicating that "critical portions of the Report are patently false or misleading, especially certain key factual claims. CIA Director Hayden testified to the Committee that "numerous false allegations of physical and threatened abuse and faulty legal assumptions and analysis in the [ICRC] report undermine its overall credibility.'"

The committee has given us instead a one-sided study marred by errors of fact and interpretation—essentially a poorly done and partisan attack on the agency that has done the most to protect America after the 9/11 attacks.

Nice touch, the "partisan" thing. Distracts people from the real issue. (See also: the abysmal comment section following the editorial.) Back to Hayden's inaccuracies.

In December 2003, a CIA Station overseeing CIA detention operations in Country [x] informed CIA Headquarters that it had made the "unsettling discovery" that the CIA was "holding a number of detainees about whom" it knew "very little," Nearly five years later, in late 2008, the CIA attempted to determine how many individuals the CIA had detained. At the completion of the review, CIA leaders, including CIA Director Michael Hayden, were informed that the review found that the CIA had detained at least 112 individuals, and possibly more.

CIA Director Hayden typically described the program as holding "fewer than a hundred" detainees. For example, in testimony before the Committee on February 4, 2008, in response to a question from Chairman Rockefeller during an open hearing, Hayden stated, "[i]n the life of the CIA detention program we have held fewer than a hundred people." {See DTS #2008-1140.) Specific references to "98" detainees were included in a May 5, 2006, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) report on Renditions, Detentions and Interrogations.

To Michael Hayden, this margin of error was acceptable.

According to tlie CIA's June 2013 Response, "Hayden did not view the discrepancy, if it existed, as particularly significant given that, if true, it would increase the total number by just over 10 percent."

Even so, he then directed a CIA officer to alter reality to match his well-worn claim of 98 detainees

According to an email summarizing the meeting, CIA Director Hayden instructed a CIA officer to devise a way to keep the number of CIA detainees at the same number the CIA had previously briefed to Congress. The email, which the briefer sent only to himself, stated:

"I briefed the additional CIA detainees that could be included in RDI numbers. DCIA instructed me to keep the detainee number at 98 ~ pick whatever date i [sic] needed to make that happen but the number is 98."

Moving on...

Contrary to statements later made by CIA Director Michael Hayden and other CIA officials that "[a]ll those involved in the questioning of detainees are carefully chosen and screened for demonstrated professional judgment and maturity, CIA records suggest that the vetting sought by [redacted] did not take place.

---

In testimony on April 12, 2007, CIA Director Michael Hayden referenced medical care of detainees in the context of the ICRC report on CIA detentions. Hayden testified to the Committee; "The medical section of the ICRC report concludes that the association of CIA medical officers with the interrogation program is 'contrary to international standards of medical ethics.' That is just wrong. The role of CIA medical officers in the detainee program is and always has been and always will be to ensure the safety and the well-being of the detainee. The placement of medical officers during the interrogation techniques represents an extra measure of caution. Our medical officers do not recommend the employment or continuation of any procedures or techniques. The allegation in the report that a CIA medical officer threatened a detainee, stating that medical care was conditional on cooperation is blatantly false. Healthcare has always been administered based upon detainee needs. It's neither policy nor practice to link medical care to any other aspect of the detainee program." This testimony was incongruent with CIA records.

---

CIA Director Hayden prepared a statement that relayed, "despite what you have heard or read in a variety of public fora, these [enhanced interrogation] techniques and this program did work." The prepared materials included inaccurate information on the operation and management of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, as well as the same set of examples of the "effectiveness" of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques that the CIA had provided to policymakers over several years. The examples provided were nearly entirely inaccurate.

---

Similarly, CIA Director Michael Hayden represented to the Committee on April 12, 2007, that "KSM also provided the first lead to an operative known as 'Issa al-Hindi,' with other detainees giving additional identifying information." The CIA provided similar inaccurate representations regarding the thwarting of the United Kingdom Urban Targets Plot and the identification and/or arrest of Dhiren Barot, aka Abu Issa al-Hindi, in 17 of the 20 documents provided to policymakers and the Department of Justice between July 2003 and March 2009.

---

The CIA represented that CIA detainee Abu Zubaydah provided "important" and "vital" information by identifying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) as the mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001 CIA Director Hayden told the Committee on April 12, 2007, that:

"..it was Abu Zubaydah, early in his detention, who identified KSM as the mastermind of 9/11. Until that time, KSM did not even appear in our chart of key al-Qa'ida members and associates."

On at least two prominent occasions, the CIA represented, inaccurately, that Abu Zubaydah provided this information after the use of the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.

---

On November 16, 2006, CIA Director Hayden briefed the Committee. The briefing included inaccurate information, including on the CIA's use of dietary manipulation and nudity, as well as the effects of sleep deprivation.

---

Director Hayden testified that detainees were never provided fewer than 1,000 calories a day. This is inaccurate. There were no calorie requirements until May 2004, and draft OMS guidelines from March 2003 indicated that "[b]rief periods in which food is withheld(1-2 days), as an adjunct to interrogations are acceptable."

---

Director Hayden testified that detainees were "not paraded [nude] in front of anyone," whereas a CIA interrogator told the inspector general that nude detainees were "kept a center area outside the interrogation room," and were "'walked around' by guards.'"

---

February 14, 2007, during a hearing on CIA renditions, Director Hayden provided inaccurate information to the Committee, to include inaccurate information on the number of detainees held by the CIA.

---

At the April 12, 2007, hearing, Director Hayden verbally provided extensive inaccurate information on, among other topics: (1) the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, (2) the application of Department of Defense survival school practices to the program, (3) detainees' counter-interrogation training, (4) the backgrounds of CIA interrogators, (5) the role of other members of the interrogation teams, (6) the number of CIA detainees and their intelligence production, (7) the role of CIA detainee reporting in the captures of terrorist suspects, (8) the interrogation process, (9) the use of detainee reporting, (10) the purported relationship between Islam and the need to use the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques, (11) threats against detainees' families, (12) the punching and kicking of detainees, (13) detainee hygiene, (14) denial of medical care, (15) dietary manipulation, (16) the use of waterboarding and its effectiveness, and (17) the injury and death of detainees.

---

At the CIA briefing to the Committee on December 11, 2007, Director Hayden testified about: (1) the information provided to the White House regarding the videotapes, (2) what the tapes revealed, (3) what was not on the tapes, (4) the reasons for their destruction, (5) the legal basis for the use of the waterboard, and (6) the effectiveness of the CIA's waterboard interrogation technique. Much of this testimony was inaccurate or incomplete.

This certainly seems like the record of relentless lying over a period of several years, contrary to Hayden's assertions. There are a few ways of viewing this, none of which cast Hayden in a flattering light. Given the comprehensive detailing of his inaccurate statements delivered as the director of the CIA, you have to assume he's either a) a liar or b) incompetent. Even if he lied to (in his mind) protect America, he still lied. Given other statements he's made about the supposed value of the program, the pendulum swings towards "liar."

He lied to protect a program he thought was valuable, even when the CIA's own documents and findings contradicted this belief. The pendulum swings toward "incompetent," but doesn't quite make it that far. There's far too much calculation lying below the obfuscation to believe Hayden didn't know exactly what he was doing when he spent briefing after briefing and hearing after hearing lying to his overseers about the extent of the program and the hideous details he was actively hiding from them.

It would almost seem as though Hayden's concerns about the safety of the country are simply a projection of his concerns about what the report reveals about him. This is the guy who wants the public to believe the CIA was screwed by a partisan hatchet job and that domestic surveillance programs are every bit as necessary as torture when it comes to hunting down terrorists. But his own words and actions show he shouldn't be trusted with an op-ed, much less the safety of American people.

from the it's-about-facts dept

While some will, no doubt, be embarrassed by the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation program, as one of the staffers who helped make the case for the Committee’s investigation when it was initiated in 2009, I can tell you that was not its intention.

(For the record, all I did was help make the initial case for the investigation and maybe put out a press release or two. I am in no way taking credit for the tremendous work that Chairman Feinstein and her committee’s staff did on this report. By the way, I know those staffers did not trek out to the CIA site in Virginia — often in their free time — in search of our thanks and recognition, but I hope you will join me in giving it to them anyway. Because reports like this do not materialize from thin air.)

The dedicated SSCI staff — who spent tens of thousands of hours over the better part of five years researching, writing and editing this report — did so in order to ensure our nation’s interrogation programs would be grounded in what has, for too long, been missing from our nation’s interrogation debate: facts.

The interrogation techniques the CIA developed during the Bush Administration were not devised by behavioral experts with experience turning detainees into "long-term strategic sources of information." Rather, as the Department of Justice’s 2008 Inspector General’s report revealed, the FBI’s interrogation experts — with that experience — repeatedly refused to sign off on proposed interrogation plans, calling them "deeply flawed" and "completely ineffective."

The CIA’s interrogation program, instead, grew from the post-9/11 mentality that the U.S. would be best kept safe by those willing to go to the greatest extremes to protect it, or as former CIA agent Glenn Carle put it in his 2011 book The Interrogator, "Interrogating terrorists was no place for goddamn candy-asses."

FBI officials have described the interrogation-strategy sessions they observed as "circus-like." I’ve personally been told by individuals who participated in high-level discussions of U.S. interrogation policy that — as disturbing as it sounds — these conversations were more often than not informed by the participants’ recollection of episodes of the TV show 24 than by an understanding of the psychology of interrogation. Meanwhile, defenders of the CIA’s Bush-era interrogation activities continue to cite the murder of nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001 as justification for their actions.

As Senator Feinstein writes in her introduction to the report:

The major lesson of this report is that regardless of the pressures and the need to act, the Intelligence Community's actions must always reflect who we are as a nation, and adhere to our laws and standards. It is precisely at these times of national crisis that our government must be guided by the lessons of our history and subject decisions to internal and external review.

The SSCI’s report was written to provide those lessons.

While some have and will likely continue to argue that President Obama settled the issue when he, as the president said in his statement today, "unequivocally banned torture when [he] took office," one might have argued that George Washington actually settled the issue 234 years earlier when he ordered that any American soldier who brought "shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country" by causing injury to a British prisoner could be put to death. Our "new country in the New World," Washington declared, "would distinguish itself by its humanity." And yet, two centuries after Washington gave that order, agents of the U.S. government subjected "at least five CIA detainees…to 'rectal rehydration' … without documented medical necessity."

President Obama’s executive order only settles the issue insofar as he remains president. As long as the belief persists that torture is an effective means of interrogation and anyone who doesn’t support ‘enhanced interrogation’ is a "candy ass" who lacks the necessary stomach to keep Americans safe, there is no assurance that a future president won’t take a different position than our current president.

Some have and will undoubtedly continue to argue that we shouldn’t discuss the efficacy of torture as an interrogation technique — even if it’s to prove that torture doesn’t work — because it suggests that if torture worked, it would be ok to torture people. I believe these people have a point.

The United States is more than a mass of land defined by geographic boundaries, it is a nation of people united by certain, principled beliefs, many of which our forefathers laid out at our nation’s founding. It is not enough to simply protect the people of the United States, one must also protect the principles that define the United States as a people; otherwise, there is no United States to protect. When the CIA and the Bush Administration sanctioned the torture of captured terrorists — regardless of their reasons — they made the United States something George Washington said we’d never be: a nation that tortures. One might argue that made us a little less American.

Some have and may continue to argue that making the CIA’s actions known puts Americans — particularly those serving overseas — in jeopardy. It’s worth noting that these arguments were made by people who know Senator Feinstein in an effort to persuade her not to make the committee report public. I say this is worth noting, because you do not need to know Senator Feinstein very well to know that there is nothing she wants less than to jeopardize the lives of American citizens, particularly those serving in harm’s way, and if there is an argument that would have given her second thoughts about releasing this report, that most likely would have been it.

If Americans are at risk, however, they are not at risk because the Senate Intelligence Committee is publicly acknowledging that the CIA tortured people during the Bush Administration. They’re at risk because the CIA tortured people during the Bush Administration.

The CIA put Americans at risk when they undermined the international agreements that protect Americans detained by foreign powers and sacrificed the moral authority we’ve long used to advocate for the humane treatment of detainees. They put Americans at risk when they made it harder — if not impossible — to prosecute known terrorists and keep them locked up. I'd also argue that defending the CIA’s actions, while refusing to come clean about what was done during the Bush Administration, not only fueled Al Qaeda’s hatred of Americans and put them at risk, it undermines the Obama Administration’s argument that the CIA no longer engages in torture.

Some have and may continue to argue that putting out this report will undermine morale at the CIA and derail its necessary work. Again, I'd argue that any hit to the CIA’s morale began when its agents were ordered to torture detainees without clear parameters and a solid legal foundation.

Some have and will no doubt continue to argue that an act taken to "prevent a threatened terrorist attack" is not as bad as an act taken "for the purpose of humiliation or abuse." I’d argue that torture is defined not by the torturer but by the person being tortured and that the laws governing torture were put in place because most people who engage in torture think they have a good reason.

There are some who have and will no doubt continue to argue — as they do about all things pertaining to national security — that this report shouldn’t have been made public. To respond to that I will quote directly from page 8 of the unclassified report:

The CIA's Office of Public Affairs and senior CIA officials coordinated to share classified information on the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program to select members of the media to counter public criticism, shape public opinion, and avoid potential congressional action to restrict the CIA's detention and interrogation authorities and budget.

If the SSCI’s report demonstrates one thing, it’s that the CIA’s unfettered ability to keep information about it’s activities secret gives it virtually limitless ability to control everyone’s understanding of its activities: from the White House and Congress to Hollywood and the American people. I have no doubt they’d argue those actions were necessary to protect national security, because in their mind — it seems — national security is harmed by anything that could potentially limit their authority to do exactly what they want. Someone should really tell them that's not how we do things in the United States.

And finally there will be some who have and will continue to argue that the CIA’s actions were necessary to protect national security. Those people, I’m guessing, need to make those arguments to help them sleep at night. To them, I’d argue the path to redemption lies not in the perpetuation of that belief, but in its eradication.

Again, please thank the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Jen Hoelzer is the former Communications Director and Deputy Chief of Staff for Senator Ron Wyden.

from the did-we-win-the-War-on-Terror-yet? dept

Perhaps the most disheartening aspect of the Torture Report [pdf link] is the fact that the CIA clearly knew the methods weren't producing usable intelligence but continued to use them anyway, all the while hiding the extent of its abuses from the rest of the goverment.

The Executive Summary is 525 pages of abusive activity, carried out under the pretense that no other approach would keep the US safe from further terrorist attacks. Dianne Feinstein's preamble addresses the incredible amount of work that went into the full report (which weighs in at over 7,000 pages). While it does point out that the CIA destroyed evidence and forced Senate staffers to work in a CIA-controlled environment while performing research, it curiously omits any mention of the CIA's spying on Senate staffers -- something that seemed to be a big deal a few months ago.

The introduction to the full report runs more than 20 pages, but even this limited sampling expands greatly on Feinstein's 6-page statement released in conjunction with the report. Contained within are more details of the futility of the CIA's torture program and the efforts it made to cover up both its extraterritorial rendition sites as well as the lack of usable intelligence it produced.

The thing is, the CIA's own records (what remains of them) point out the limited return on investment.

[A]ccording to CIA records, seven of the 39 CIA detainees known to have been subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques produced no intelligence while in CIA custody. CIA detainees who were subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques were usually subjected to the techniques immediately after being rendered to CIA custody. Other detainees provided significant accurate intelligence prior to, or without having been subjected to these techniques.

Torture produced useful intel less frequently than other methods. Information was volunteered even without the use of torture. But some who might have volunteered useful information were never given the chance, as the CIA showed a predilection for torturing first and asking questions later. And those who were tortured did what they could to end the torment.

While being subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques and afterwards, multiple CIA detainees fabricated information, resulting in faulty intelligence. Detainees provided fabricated information on critical intelligence issues, including the terrorist threats which the CIA identified as its highest priorities.

A lack of useful intel wasn't enough to derail the CIA's torture plans. Agents ignored warnings from medical staff and continued to "break down" detainees. Medical personnel were asked to do whatever was needed to return detainees to torture-ready condition.

Detainees were subjected to waterboarding, ice water "baths," 180-hour stints of sleep deprivation, extended physical/mental abuse and being chained naked to cell floors. The CIA also made it personal, threatening detainees with a list of horrors their family members would be subjected to if they didn't cooperate.

CIA officers also threatened at least three detainees with harm to their families — to include threats to harm the children of a detainee, threats to sexually abuse the mother of a detainee, and a threat to "cut [a detainee's] mother's throat."

Some of this behavior was exacerbated by the CIA's active disinterest in ensuring it didn't create a playground for problematic agents in its employ.

Numerous CIA officers had serious documented personal and professional problems—including histories of violence and records of abusive treatment of others—that should have called into question their suitability to participate in the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program, their employment with the CIA, and their continued access to classified information. In nearly all cases, these problems were known to the CIA prior to the assignment of these officers to detention and interrogation positions.

The agency callously turned over detainees to these agents and continued with its unproductive "intelligence gathering." The program veered from merely useless to borderline psychopathy on several occasions. Detainees who should never have been detained were subjected to torture, including one who was held simply to coerce information out of undetained relatives.

Of the 119 known detainees, at least 26 were wrongfully held and did not meet the detention standard in the September 2001 Memorandum of Notification (MON). These included an intellectually challenged" man whose CIA detention was used solely as leverage to get a family member to provide information…

In addition, the CIA apparently tortured its own, thanks to its torture-first policy.

...two individuals who were intelligence sources for foreign liaison services and were former CIA sources...

And bad intel obtained via torture led to even more torture of individuals who never should have been detained.

...and two individuals whom the CIA assessed to be connected to al-Qa'ida based solely on information fabricated by a CIA detainee subjected to the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques.

The program was such a fiasco that it actually harmed US counterterrorism efforts.

The CIA, in the conduct of its Detention and Interrogation Program, complicated, and in some cases impeded, the national security missions of other Executive Branch agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the State Department, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The CIA withheld or restricted information relevant to these agencies' missions and responsibilities, denied access to detainees, and provided inaccurate information on the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program to these agencies.

But the agency still believed -- or at least wanted to believe -- it was fighting the good fight. The Office of Legal Counsel intervened on its behalf, redefining "torture" as acceptable "under the current circumstances."

Having reviewed information provided by the CIA, the OLC included the "necessity defense" in its August 1, 2002, memorandum to the White House counsel on Standards of Conduct for Interrogation. The OLC determined that "under the current circumstances, necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate" the criminal prohibition against torture.

Two consecutive CIA directors further insulated the program by pursuing actions to lock out the Office of the Inspector General. In 2005, CIA Director Goss requested that no further reviews be initiated until the faulty 2004 review was complete. In 2007, Director Michael Hayden vindictively ordered a review of the OIG itself, deterring it from pursuing further investigations of the CIA's interrogation programs. The "faulty" 2004 review was the direct result of the CIA feeding bad info to the OIG in order to cover up its rendition and interrogation programs.

Not only was the OIG eventually locked out, but the CIA's activities were so "dirty" and its gathered intel so questionable that the FBI and Dept. of Defense distanced themselves from the program, refusing to participate in any way. Anything usable was ignored along with anything useful the CIA obtained from its detainees. To further complicate things, the CIA denied requests for access from FBI director Mueller and compartmentalized its intelligence, walling itself off from other intelligence and investigative agencies.

This program, which was hidden by its participants, lied about to multiple layers of supposed oversight (including the President), and produced little to no usable intelligence, is the same program that is now being defended by former officials as something that "saved" American lives. If it has, there's no evidence of it in here. What it looks like is a post-terrorist-attack reaction being allowed to indulge in its own excesses, using justifications like "under the current circumstances" and "ticking time bombs" to excuse the abysmal depths of its ultimately futile depravity.

from the using-bullshit-ends-to-justify-the-means dept

The Senate Torture Report has officially been released. Accompanying it is a 6-page statement containing "highlights" from the 525-page "Executive Summary" of the (obviously much larger) full report. (We'll have more once we've dug through the larger report.)

The statement [pdf link], put together by Sen. Feinstein's office, opens with this quote from the Senate Intelligence Committee head:

This document examines the CIA’s secret overseas detention of at least 119 individuals and the use of coercive interrogation techniques—in some cases amounting to torture.

The delineation between "torture" and "coercive interrogation techniques" will be left up to many, many dissemblers. Those who defend the CIA's actions will opt for the former, presumably in long opinion pieces hosted at CIASavedLives.com, a website created solely for countering the negative press that will follow the release of the Torture Report. The site is still mostly dead at this point, occasionally humming to half-life with a bit of pre-emptive flag waving. (LITERALLY)

But the actions contained in this short summary certainly meet any reasonable definition of the word "torture."

In November 2002 a detainee who had been held partially nude and chained to a concrete floor died from suspected hypothermia at the facility.

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Sleep deprivation involved keeping detainees awake for up to 180 hours, usually standing or in painful stress positions, at times with their hands shackled above their heads. The CIA led several detainees to believe they would never be allowed to leave CIA custody alive, suggesting to one detainee that he would only leave in a coffin-shaped box.

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CIA detainees at one detention facility, described as a “dungeon,” were kept in complete darkness and constantly shackled in isolated cells with loud noise or music and only a bucket to use for human waste.

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Contrary to CIA representations to the Department of Justice, the waterboarding technique was physically harmful, inducing convulsions and vomiting. During one session, Abu Zubaydah became “completely unresponsive with bubbles rising through his open full mouth.” Internal CIA records describe the waterboarding of Khalid Shaykh Mohammad as evolving into a “series of near drownings.”

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[T]he CIA instructed personnel that the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah would take “precedence” over his medical care, resulting in the infection and deterioration of a bullet wound Abu Zubaydah incurred during his capture.

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At least five CIA detainees were subjected to “rectal feeding” or “rectal hydration” without documented medical need.

All of this (and there's much more documented in the full report) and for what? To save lives, as the URL goes? But there's no evidence this torture resulted in usable intelligence.

The committee reviewed 20 of the most frequent and prominent examples of purported counterterrorism “successes” that the CIA has attributed to the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques. Each of those examples was found to be wrong in fundamental respects. In some cases, there was no relationship between the claimed counterterrorism “success” and any information provided by a CIA detainee during or after the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques. In the remaining cases, the CIA inaccurately represented that unique information was acquired from a CIA detainee as a result of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, when in fact the information was either (a) acquired from the CIA detainee prior to the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques or (b) corroborative of information already available to the intelligence community from sources other than the CIA detainee, and therefore not unique or “otherwise unavailable...”

The CIA took these lies went all the way to the top.

In an attempt to justify the use of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation techniques, the CIA provided examples of supposedly “thwarted” terrorist plots and the capture of specific terrorists that the CIA attributed to the use of its techniques. The CIA representations were inaccurate and contradicted by the CIA’s own records. The CIA’s internal Panetta Review also identified numerous inaccuracies in the CIA’s effectiveness representations—including representations to the President.

And when the CIA wasn't lying about the techniques being necessary to stay ahead of "ticking time bombs," it was lying about its methods.

Records do not support CIA representations that the CIA initially used an “an open, non-threatening approach,” or that interrogations began with the “least coercive technique possible” and escalated to more coercive techniques only as necessary. Instead, in many cases the most aggressive techniques were used immediately, in combination and nonstop.

It's not just the US that will have to weather this debacle -- one that gives lie to the government's view that it holds itself to higher standard than its enemies -- it's every other country that participated in the CIA's extraordinary rendition program.

The real question following the release of this report is whether anyone will be held accountable for these deplorable actions. There needs to be meaningful punishments handed down. If not, then the rest of the world will know how much we're willing to let our agencies get away with during this neverending War on Terror. Failing to do so will only open the door for further abuse.

Those who believe the threat of terrorism can justify nearly anything are now claiming the threat of terrorism justifies NOT doing something. Daniel Drezner rounds up quotes from current and former officials who believe that the safety of our nation now hinges on not releasing the long-delayed "Torture Report." Joining John Kerry in his statement that the release could have negative effects on "foreign policy" are a host of familiar names, starting with House Intelligence Committee head Mike Rogers.

"I think this is a terrible idea," Rogers said. "Our foreign partners are telling us this will cause violence and deaths. . . . Foreign leaders have approached the government and said, 'You do this, this will cause violence and deaths.' Our own intelligence community has assessed that this will cause violence and deaths."

Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, echoes Rogers' concerns.

"...[T]his will be used by our enemies to motivate people to attack Americans and American facilities overseas."

As Drezner points out, the narrative these men are pushing makes no sense. According to Hayden, Rogers and (to a lesser extent) Kerry, the release of this report will be the tipping point for our enemies, rather than two lengthy, unending military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan… or years of drone strikes… the United States' constant support of Israel… the revelations of torture occurring at Abu Ghraib…

According to this narrative, terrorists will be more outraged by a damning Senate report than by the previous decade-plus of actions in response to the 9/11 attacks.

I'm sorry, but this is just nuts. There is no shortage of US foreign policy actions and inactions in the region to inflame enemies. The Senate report is small potatoes compared to that.

The release of the report could actually be a net win for the US. Its reputation has taken several hits over the past year, and exposing its flaws to the world -- in hopes of preventing this behavior from repeating itself -- will show our allies, and our enemies, that the nation is stronger than its weakest moments. Delaying the release of the report, or rendering it meaningless via over-redaction, won't send the same message. Instead, it will confirm our enemies' (and allies') worst suspicions: that the US government cares more about maintaining a facade than actually making an effort to rebuild its damaged reputation. Doing what Kerry, Rogers and Hayden suggest -- bury the report until whenever (and at what point will we not have enemies?) -- could actually provide more motivation to terrorists than being open, honest and contrite about the CIA's actions.

from the paging-mark-udall dept

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous. We've written plenty about the Senate Intelligence Committee's massive $40 million, 6,000 page torture report, detailing a variety of failures related to the CIA's torture program after 9/11. While the Committee voted (overwhelmingly) to release a redacted 480 page executive summary of the document, and the White House insisted it wanted to do so as well, since then it's become clear that the White House was going to do everything to block it from actually getting out.

Yesterday it came out that an agreement had finally been reached on the redactions and that it would finally be released on Monday. Apparently, the CIA/White House won the battle over the question of redacting pseudonyms -- which was a key fight. Basically, those who have seen the report say that if you redact the pseudonyms, important parts of what happened are greatly distorted (such as who is doing what). But apparently, that's what was agreed to anyway.

“What he raised was timing of report release, because a lot is going on in the world -- including parts of the world particularly implicated -- and wanting to make sure foreign policy implications were being appropriately factored into timing,” an administration official told me. "He had a responsibility to do so because this isn’t just an intel issue -- it’s a foreign policy issue."

To put it simply, this is a complete bullshit argument. There's always going to be "a lot going on in the world" especially in areas who are going to be upset by the report. There's never going to be a "good" time to release a report that details just how screwed up the CIA's torture program is -- but it's the only way to actually start the process of making things right and making sure that we, as a country don't do that kind of thing again.

In fact, if the government is so damn concerned about the reaction to the release of the report, here's an idea: don't let the government do stuff that leads to a report that will create such a reaction!

Furthermore, the argument that a "delay" is necessary makes no sense either. Beyond the fact that there's always something going on in the world, in this case, they've known that this report was coming for months. To argue they haven't had enough time to prepare is clearly bogus. Back in April the State Department was whining about this as well, but now it's had months to prepare and it's still whining?

Finally, the claims by the State Department that it's just asking for a delay, rather than to shelve the whole report ring hollow. One of the reasons that it's coming out next week is because, after that, the Republicans are back in control, and they've indicated that they'll bury the report entirely. At this point, if Feinstein gives in to Kerry, it seems like the only viable option for getting the report out to the world is to have outgoing Senator Mark Udall release it himself on the floor of the Senate.

Key senators are pushing back against a CIA plan to destroy older emails of “non-senior” agency officials.

The heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday sent a letter opposing the proposal, under which only the highest ranking CIA workers would have their email correspondence permanently saved.

The plan “could allow the destruction of crucial documentary evidence regarding the CIA’s activities that is essential for Congress, the public and the courts to know,” Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Vice Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) wrote to the National Archives...

The senators are asking the National Archives to step up and somehow prevent this from happening -- most likely by declaring "non-senior" emails to be retainable records that must be turned over rather than destroyed. The CIA would prefer to destroy the emails of all but the top 22 employees three years after they leave, or when "no longer needed, whichever is sooner." Unfortunately for the senators making this request, the National Archive has already signaled its agreement with the CIA's proposed retention schedule changes.

In tentatively approving the request, the National Archives noted that the emailed information “is unlikely” to exist in other forms that will be marked for permanent storage.

Any information not found in those other files likely “has little or no research value,” it added.

Senators Feinstein and Chambliss -- in rare agreement with transparency and government accountability activists -- disagree with the National Archives' assessment.

“In our experience, email messages are essential to finding CIA records that may not exist in other so-called permanent records at the CIA,” Feinstein and Chambliss wrote.

Longer retention is needed, especially for an agency as secretive as the CIA. The standard wait period for sensitive document declassification is 25 years. Correspondence related to declassified documents will be long gone by that point.

Even in terms of normal FOIA requests, three years is cutting things close. Rarely does an FOIA-worthy event come to light within days or weeks of its occurrence. It's generally weeks, months or years down the road. By the time documents are requested, ignored by the CIA's FOIA staff and finally pried free by a federal lawsuit*, responsive documents may already have been destroyed. Without a doubt, the CIA knows this is a distinct possibility and any trimming of retention periods only makes it more likely that relevant communications will be permanently removed from circulation.